The riding of Edmonton-Strathcona is a mostly urban riding with some suburban regions off to the south and east. It is one of the most diverse ridings in Alberta, as nearly 17% of the population are immigrants, and the riding is also home to most of Edmonton’s sizeable Francophone community. Its population is just shy of 100,000, and as with the rest of the province, it has been suffering the growing pains of being part of a boomtown.

Albertans have a well-deserved reputation for being politically apathetic, but as in so many other ways, Edmonton-Strathconans seem to be the exception. The riding had the highest voter turnout in the province in the 2006 federal election, weighing in at a whopping 70.6%. Of course, in part, this seems to have been because even then, there were signs of this riding being a real race:

2006 election results

Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Rahim Jaffer 22,009 41.7% +2.3%
New Democrat Linda Duncan 17,153 32.5% +8.7%
Liberal Andy Hladyshevsky 9,391 17.8% -11.2%
Green Cameron Wakefield 3,139 5.9% -0.6%

A glance at those results clearly suggests Edmonton-Strathcona is a classic case of the Conservatives only being able to win by exploiting the vote-splitting among the progressive parties. But a few factors make this riding more interesting than your typical “Conservative comes up the middle” riding. For one, in Edmonton-Strathcona, those votes are anything but evenly distributed throughout the riding. Support for the Conservatives, for example, is concentrated in the large, sparsely populated suburban polls off to the eastern and southern parts of the riding:

Conservative vote distribution 2006 Conservatives 2006

Support for the NDP, on the other hand, is concentrated in the smaller and more densely populated urban polls in the centre of the riding:

NDP vote distribution 2006 NDP 2006

Finally, support for the third-place Liberals is much more uniformly distributed across the riding:

Liberal vote distribution 2006 Liberals 2006

The vote in the riding has also exhibited some interesting changes over time (the “Conservative” vote in this chart for the 1993-2000 elections pools the Reform and PC votes for the sake of comparison):

Vote change over time, 1993-2006
Edmonton-Strathcona since 1993

The Liberal vote has been going down in each election since 1993, while the NDP has gained each time, and in recent years, nearly in direct proportion to each Liberal decrease. Of particular note is the fact that the NDP was able to gain nine points in each of the 2004 and 2006 elections, while the Conservatives were only able to skim the fat off of the corresponding Liberal vote collapse. This suggests that while Liberal voters in Edmonton-Strathcona are willing to vote NDP, they are much more reluctant to turn Tory.

To further complicate matters, the riding is made up not just of the provincial constituency of Edmonton-Strathcona (currently held by New Democrat Rachel Notley), but also of parts of Edmonton-Gold Bar (currently held by Liberal Hugh MacDonald), parts of Edmonton-Riverview (currently held by Liberal Kevin Taft), and parts of Edmonton-Mill Creek (currently held by Alberta PC Gene Zwozdesky). What that translates to in terms of federal-level voting is anyone’s guess, but it certainly has an effect on where each of the parties are able to concentrate their respective volunteer bases.

Due to its unusual geographic, demographic, and partisan makeup, Edmonton-Strathcona has always been a fun riding for political junkies to watch. This time, though, the media and bloggers alike seem to be in agreement that it’s a “riding to watch” not just because of a particularly fascinating vote-splitting technique, but because it’s a rare Alberta riding that has a chance of changing hands in this election. Over the course of the next week, I’ll be talking about each of the four major local parties, their activity since the 2006 election, their nomination races, and the candidates they ultimately chose. Stay tuned.

Further reading:
Edmonton-Strathcona: the Conservatives
Edmonton-Strathcona: the New Democrats
Edmonton-Strathcona: the Liberals
Edmonton-Strathcona: the Greenssite stats